The Triangle's jobless rate jumped to 9 percent in December, as employers remained reluctant to ramp up hiring.
The rate rose from 8.7 percent in November. The latest data was released this morning by the N.C. Employment Security Commission and adjusted for seasonal effects by Wells Fargo Securities economists in Charlotte.
The New & Observer uses the adjusted data because they provide a more statistically valid measure of employment.
In Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties, there were 60,593 people unemployed in December, about the same as the month before, the ESC reported.
A major point of contention is that the ESC figures don't count frustrated job seekers who have given up looking or taken part-time jobs to get by. Many critics claim the "underemployed" rate is much higher, even in a relatively robust region like the Triangle.
There have been some bright spots. In recent weeks, companies such as IEM, a risk-management consultant based in Louisiana, and ACW Technology, a British technology manufacturer, have announced plans to add hundreds of local jobs.
The Research Triangle Research Partnership reports that companies announced plans in 2009 to create 10,000 jobs and make $1.85 billion in new investments in the 13-county region that the partnership promotes.
Assistant Business Editor Alan M. Wolf joined the N&O in 1999 covering the business of health care. He became an editor in 2001, and helps oversee the paper's daily business coverage and Sunday Work&Money section. He lives in Clayton with his wife and two children. Reach him at 919-829-4572 or
Comments
Look a little harder for answers...
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 23:25 — karencheynePerhaps people should start pointing fingers in the right direction for a change...at many of your top corporations who are shipping a hefty portion of their U.S. investors' money off shore to build huge manufactuing plants and to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for low cost laborers. These are probably the exact same corporations who are funding the Republicans and hounding them incessantly to ensure corporate taxes get lower and lower.
Jobs will never return to former levels until corporations that provide jobs outside the Us (and cut jobs inside the US ) are forced to pay significantly higher taxes than those who provide jobs on US soil.
Right now, spending programs are horrendously expensive simply because taxes are seriously depressed; corporations are producing and selling products off shore..thus, paying less and less taxes to the US; they're employing offshore, thus, no payroll taxes paid to the US; they're giving themselves huge bonuses to deplete the revenue they have made in the US, putting themselves deep in the red and ensuring they don't have to pay a dime in taxes to the US. They have the best of all worlds.....cause now, many of them probably reap stimulus funds to pay their expenses in the US leaving them with even more profits.
Obama should not give a dime of stimulus money to any corporation that is actively carrying out business offshore while cutting its US workforce.
Ideologue
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 22:22 — hoosierhysteriaPhantomLord's comments indicate that of an ideologue, nothing of substance but lots of complaining.
Anyone spotted the People
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 17:22 — Notsurewhere_NCAnyone spotted the People Republic of NC's JOB's guvner recently?
Yes HOLE...kinda' like W. A
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 15:45 — RaleighBornYes HOLE...kinda' like W. A hole...
Listen up Repubs...
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 15:44 — RaleighBornYour guy, the moron - W - put us $3Trillion in the hole before the current prez stepped in the door. Where was your whining then? As the previous poster said, it will take more than a year to dig us out of the hole W put us in.
Finally the N&O says what we've all known for awhile...
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 15:33 — RaleighBornAt least the N&O didn't trot out its STUPID, TIRED line: "the Triangle is faring better than other parts of the state...blah, blah, blah, blecchh..."
Yeah, tell that to hundred or so people your paper laid-off and will probably never find another job in journalism in the Triangle ever again. Tell that to the THOUSANDS of people in the Triangle like me who send out resumes all day and hear nothing in return.
Moronic N&O...
Oh yeah, and N&O...What "critics" say is "underempoyment" is a real fact; the underemployment rate is really much higher, both here and in the entire country....close to 20%.
Stop trying to make things sound rosy please...they aren't...and the Triangle is not the savior of the state with regards to jobs. Get your facts right...after all you are supposed to report the facts, right?
Sure. Barney Frank, Chris
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 15:32 — PhantomLordSure. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, and the democrat controlled congress had nothing to do with the economic problems. Nothing at all.
The world wouldn't be in the
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 14:59 — elvisdThe world wouldn't be in the mess it is in were it not for the collective stupidity of those who voted for bush in Nov, 2000. After four years of demonstrated incompetence from bush, you Morons put him back in office. WOW!
the Bush Recession takes it's toll
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 13:44 — marcedward1It takes more than a year to clean up after a Republican.
Hows that Hope & Change and
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 12:45 — PhantomLordHows that Hope & Change and the "Jobs Governor" working out for you?
Suckers.
Unfortunately the rest of us have to suffer the consequences of your idiocy last Nov.